Handyman, carpentry and home renovation jobs done the environmentally friendly way with an eye to detail and customer satisfaction

Divert your downspouts/Install a rain barrel!

Rain barrels are a great idea for home owners because they collect "free" water and allow you to distribute it over key areas of your property such as flower beds and gardens. Whether you desire a rain barrel or not, it is still a good idea to divert downspouts from your home drain system. This greatly reduces the risk of household sewer back-ups and also avoids dumping clean rain water into the city's sewer system. Clean rain water mixed with "grey" sewer water can overload water treatment plants -- during a heavy downpour hundreds of gallons of water fall on the average roof each hour. I can divert your downspouts for you and/or install a rain barrel, both of which are simple and environmentally friendly modifications.

Four basic types of tools that make carbon-neutral lawn care easy, efficient, quiet, healthy and fun..

SYTHE: When properly sharpened, this tool will address and prepare a wild field for mowing faster than any power tool I have tried. Greenhouse gas emissions = zero.

CLIPPERS, PRUNERS and LOPPERS: Manual hand tools are great for fast and selective trimming and pruning.

RAKE: Wider rakes have become popular -- used properly, they can be quite efficient. Perhaps less fun than leaf blowers, rakes offer healthy exercise and quiet, carbon-neutral operation.

Above -- new siding and soffit to finish off the exterior of the Black River cabin -- it's good to let the attic breathe and to appreciate the effects that the elements, especially moisture, can have on the life of a structure.

Below -- new stone steps out to a garden in east Toronto. First, rotten wooden deck-style steps were removed to make way for a level base of limestone screening and then the bottom layer of stone was carefully positioned, leveled and back-filled; the second photo shows the steps two-thirds done; once the third step was in position the upper walkway interlock required extensive leveling including repairs to frost upheaval. All done at a very reasonable cost. The original garden steps on the left were slightly modified and maintained by the homeowner until the next project; the area around the steps was then seeded with grass. .

Split-rail fence project in Elora, Ontario, using fallen cedar wood from the same property.

Seeding your Lawn or Garden..

..a friendly way to get excellent results!

Below, a seed mix heavy in cone flowers and liberally applied to a prepared bed in spring will produce lovely summer flowers that are a magnet for an interesting variety of pollinator species.

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Other products and services from Carbon Tip-toe

I compared the Naturcut to the "contact blade" push reel mowers of competitors and found the NaturCut to be much easier to operate under these conditions -- agile, effective and easy to push -- and therefore equal to the task of cutting all the wild grass in an environmentally friendly way.